Wah and Wiremu.

This year the judges took us their criterion the sincerity of the speech and the naturalness with which it was delivered, and they awarded the medal to Mr. Wah, who gave an excellent but conventional speech with quiet dignity. He was more at case on the platform than any of the other speakers, and his voice was very pleasing to listen to. He spoke of Wiremu Tamehana, and, considering his speech, not from the point of view of the casual listener, but from the various aspects which the judges consider, it is easy to see why they had little difficulty in reaching their decision. His opening was good, the body of the speech was a [unclear: nicely balanced] account of the life, the work and the ideals of Tamehana, and he led up to a satisfying conclusion. It might have been a model Plunket Medal speech. It was not impassioned oratory but it was an excellent address, full of merit, and it was delivered with restraint without being in the least monotonous.

Freeman's Fierce Harangue.

Without in any way disagreeing with the judges' decision, it is yet true to say that Mr. Wah's speech was neither the most impressive nor the most outstanding of the evening. Derek Freeman gave a brilliant and a beautiful oration in defense of the Spanish people. It had many faults, and he ought not to have given it at all in a Plunket Medal contest. It was dramatic; at the end it was almost theatrical, but it had a vitality and a brilliance that Mr. Wah's speech lacked.

Derek was not placed by the judges, who considered, quite truly, that he had used John [unclear: Cornford] as an excuse for propaganda. His sincerity they could scarcely have doubted, but his naturalness they may have done, for at times the rich poetry of his prose, and the fluency of his delivery, made his speech more like elocution than oratory. It was marred, too, by his [unclear: similes,] made to an old familiar formula and superficial as a civic [unclear: tribute.] [unclear: But] despite all this he attained a standard far above that of the other speakers. He spoke to the audience instead of in front of them, and, with a fierceness that was almost passionate, he told them of a man, [unclear: scarcely] more than a boy, who died for liberty and justice. John Cornford was a poet and a student, and there may never be a more fitting tribute to his memory than that, a thousand miles from Spain, another man, scarcely more than a boy, a poet and a student, should move an audience with ideals that they both shared.

What the Judges Liked.

Plunket Modal speeches that begin with the time and place of a man's arrival on this planet, and proceed chronologically to his obituary notices, are seldom a success. Bob Edgley was evidently determined not to make this mistake, for he began with Disraeli's funeral service, and worked round in a circle until he came to his death again. Disraeli is one of the most romantic characters in English history; books, and delightful books at that, have been written about him, so that as a subject for oratory he has great possibilities. These Bob made the most of, [unclear: he gave a colourful speech burdening it with too many] anecdotes, which must be a temptation to those who talk of Disraeli. After the funeral service he sounded the great man s knell with a series of sentences, all beginning with the word "Disraeli." At the fourth time the construction began to pall, and we were glad when he stopped after the fifth. The second half of his speech was much more natural than the first, both in treatment and delivery, but taken as a whole it was good, and well merited its placing.

Names that most of us would hesitate to pronounce in far less conspicuous places than the Concert Chamber seem to hold no terrors for Mr. Perry. This year it was General Chang [unclear: Hsueh] Liang, the young Marshal of China, who, having conquered the drug habit, proceeded to conquer everything else in sight. We were a little sorry for Mr. Perry, because he spoke after Derek Freeman, whose brilliant discourse on Spain made his China seem particularly colourless by contrast. Actually his speech was full of colour and vitality, but he failed to put them across to the audience, because his intonation was monotonous and his constructions involved. It was a speech that required concentration to listen to, but which repaid the effort of concentrating.

The Favourite [unclear: Fails].

There was a wave of [unclear: pleasurable] anticipation when Margaret [unclear: Shortall] began, and she began well, but somehow the grey tale of [unclear: Kemal] Pasha [unclear: disappointed] an audience that remembered the glitter and the sparkle of Sir Basil Zaharoff. Her street scenes, with the man, who changed his hat and the woman who changed her sphere, didn't quite go over; and her notes, which looked like a badly sorted bridge hand on which she had to bill in a hurry, spoiled the effect she should have achieved. It is very uncomfortable for a sympathetic audience when a speaker forgets the speech and has to hunt for what to say next. Mr. Renner, in his summing up, described it as the deadly sin.

Margaret's speech was a disappointment because it was not up to the standard she has set herself in previous years, and there were a great many people present who would have liked her to win. We understand that this was her last contest, and although she has never won the Plunket Medal, she has achieved something, for she has delighted four years of Plunket Medal audiences.

From the gallery Mr. R. L. Meek looked so like he did as [unclear: Mephistopheles in "The Plutocrats," that "Salient", had an uneasy feeling that be might do a conjuring trick at any moment. He began his speech, with the initial applause still echoing through the hall, by saying "The room is very quiet," which was an astonishing remark under the circumstances, and a very poor way to begin a speech. Out of the quiet room (which turned out to be not the Concert Chamber after all) there emerged a medley of concertos, sonatas, and the story of Beethoven, who was badmannered], dirty and stone deaf, and who yet gave the world some of the loveliest music it has ever heard. Ron knew what he was talking about, and what he said was interesting, but it would have made a better essay than a speech. We think, too that the audience would" like him better if they were not completely ignored by him.

From Mr. C. A. Myers we expected better things than we got. He spoke of Garibaldi, delivering what sounded like an extract from the [unclear: Encyclolpedia] [unclear: Britannica] in as monotonous a tone as a wireless announcer reading a weather report. Towards the end he stopped telling us what we all [unclear: learnt] at school, and both his enthusiasm and ours increased. At the very end he reached the crux of his speech comparing the ideals of Garibaldi. Who loved liberty so passionately he would die for it, with the aims of Mussolini, to whom liberty is a dead thing. In this one moment, [gap — reason: illegible] of the twelve. "Salient" thought. "Mr. Myers will probably give an excellent Plunket Medal speech next year."

The words of the judges in 1936 appear not to have fallen on completely barren soil, for Mr. A. I. [unclear: McCulloch] began his speech by explaining very carefully that although [unclear: Raiah] Brooke was not as good a man us he might have been, only the more admirable 'aspects of his character would be referred to. Paraded in polysyllabic splendour the Raiah's virtues left us [unclear: cold]. With a little more imagination and a little less vocabulary Mr. McCulloch could have got far more than he did from his very promising subject.